In the digital age, more and more people are working from home. One in five Americans work remotely at least once a week. This number is expected to continue to rise in the next few years. The appeal of working from home is one reason to consider having your next company meeting be a video meeting, but there are a variety of other reasons companies are now turning more to online meetings.

Save Money...period

Whether you are meeting with employees across the city, across the state, across the nation, or even internationally, people do not have to worry about the travel expenses associated with getting to the meeting. For companies with employees situated geographically far apart, food and hotel accommodations are also not an issue. Because people are participating in the meeting from their own locations, money can also be saved on office space. Also, not to mention the improved work efficiency of your staff relates to time saved, and most would agree, time equals money.

Productive and happy employees

With business meetings involving people who have to fly or travel large distances productivity can be a real issue. The person will have less time to work on the project while traveling. Plus, travel makes people tired which results in them being less productive. With video meetings, employees can work up until the point of the meeting, and as soon as the meeting is over, everyone can get back to work. The people are not exhausted and can continue to be productive employees. Of course this does not refer to working longer hours, rather completing work tasks efficiently and more time is available for employees to manage their personal affairs.

More People Can Participate

Company meetings can include the people who would otherwise not be able to make the meeting. Maybe your company has an employee either based internationally or who is currently working internationally. Through a video meeting, that employee can participate in a meeting he or she would otherwise miss. An investor or potential business contact living elsewhere can also come to the meeting when it is hosted virtually. Video meetings are also great for the mother who wants to work for your company but who lives across the country and is who reluctant to move because she really likes her kids’ school or her husband already has a great job where they currently live.

Video meetings are also appealing when the weather outside is bad. Whether a winter storm has made visibility almost zero, heavy flooding has made travel dangerous, or other weather-related issues make staying at home sound wonderful, a video meeting allows the meeting to still take place.

Vidyo recently announced a signed agreement between the company and Google to enhance video quality in Google’s web-native applications that do not require plug-ins or special software. As the current software provider for Google Hangouts on Google+, Vidyo will now extend its contribution to Google’s services by providing the software that will allow users with different quality video and audio streams to access the same content based on their unique bandwidth and device characteristics.

Vidyo’s technology will automatically lower quality and bandwidth to a Smartphone with a weak 3G connection while automatically providing full quality streaming to desktop users of Google Fiber. Chee Chew, VP of Engineering at Google, said in a statement,

Vidyo has been a great partner, working with Google to provide a high quality video solution for Hangouts.

Vidyo has brought that same adaptive technology to video conferencing. Their VidyoRouter™ architecture monitors in real time the performance and capabilities of each endpoint device. By monitoring the underlying network, Vidyo’s technology adapts video streams instantaneously to optimize video communication. A more natural communication experience is delivered due to reduced end-to-end latency compared to traditional MCU-based solutions.

By finally capturing the technology that produces high-quality multi-party video Vidyo provides unmatched telepresence quality and multi-point video communications. This is an amazing tool for companies and business owners with employees scattered all over the city, the state and the world.

In-person meetings have always been a daily event in the world of business. However, with one out of every five people working from home and the expense involved in getting people to a central location, the typical meeting has become more and more costly. As evident by the growing use of video conferencing business professionals obviously see the benefits of the technology and are using it in increasing numbers.

Why waste the time and effort of traveling to another city, state or
even country to have a conference meeting when you could do so in the
comfort of your own home, without having to leave your loved ones?

Meeting face to face, whether it be with corporate stakeholders or an
employee, has never been so painstakingly simple. No matter where
you're located, and whether you're on a laptop, smart phone or tablet,
you can harness the benefits of video conferencing and personal telepresence to improve your business communications right now.

Why Would Your Business Even Need Video Conferencing?

Before you decide to even learn the benefits of video conderencing
and personal telepresence, you need to ask yourself why you really
need it. Is it to allow executives who lack necessary time to meet
virtually face to face to discuss issues and resolve problems?

Could you use video conferencing for face to face training, to answer
questions or have discussions with new or potential employees? Do you
need important face time with a potential client and want to bring together the key decision makers from their various locations? If you
could make use of the above key points, then you probably need an easy
to use video conferencing tool that streams flawlessly in HD quality.

DIY Or Outsource to a Provider?

Now that you have an idea of the benefits and how your company can
benefit from personal telepresence, it's time to decide whether you
want to take the do it yourself route of putting extra pressure on your
IT staff or utilize a service provider.

A few of the key benefits that come with outsourcing all of your video conferencing needs are:

The most cost-effective benefit is that you never have to pay excessive amounts for video conferencing servers, most of which which will become outdated within a few years.

You gain access to a qualified, courteous customer support team that
is able to resolve any issues or technical problems you may encounter.

You never have to hire extra employees or re-train within your IT staff.

A turn-key solution that allows your business to immediately adopt a new communication tool and start conferencing.

Many believe video conferencing is the future of the old-fashioned
"corporate meeting", and they just might be right. Don't let the
distance between employees get in the way of your company's
productivity, take a leap forward and make the upgrade to using personal telepresence in your business today!

The era of the telepresence meetings has become better than ever now, and we here at Batipi feel our Vidyo service has progressed that even further. Using state-of-the-art technology, we let you do telepresence meetings in amazing clarity to a point where it feels like everyone is in the room together. And while there may be a new protocol developing in what you wear and how you present yourself, how do you basically set up a room so it's presentable during a video conference meeting?

If it's an important business meeting, you may have to set up your room as meticulously as a director would framing a shot for a movie.

Lighting Considerations

When you're about to have a group video conference, how the room looks will make a huge impression on those viewing you. Private point-to-point video conferencing can sometimes be more casual if you know the other business associate well. But a group video conference for an important business deal has to show an impressive setting. That means gearing up the room with the best possible lighting.

While natural lighting might work in some cases, it's best to close all shades on surrounding windows. This prevents the sun from shining in unexpectedly and overpowering the lighting for the camera. Normal office lighting will keep your lighting consistent so those viewing can see you and your employees clearly at all times.

Consideration of Color on Clothing

With the acceptability of more casual clothing in some video conferences, it's still worth going with business casual to be safe. However, as part of the room setup, you have to pay more attention to the color of your clothes. Overly bright colors might not translate well on the camera. The same goes with camera contrast on deep black and white colors.

It's best to go with colors that are more neutral so they don't look distracting to those viewing you on a monitor.

Dealing with Sounds

Nothing is more annoying during a video conference than a sound in the background that distracts from hearing everyone properly. Make sure there isn't any construction sounds or music playing during your important video conference. Also, ask your employees not to tap their fingers or shuffle papers during the conference that the microphone might pick up.

Presenting Information

During a video conference, you'll likely be presenting materials that show information your business associates want to know. We recommend to use a built-in feature that will share your screen with remote participants, as it is too difficult for remote viewers to see your "in-room" presentation materials. As well, have all the materials ready to present during the meeting so there won't be wasted time finding what you need.

A final part of your setup should involve a plan to move the camera around the room during the meeting to provide variety. Just like in a movie, a video conference can look overly static with the camera staying in one place the entire time.

With these things in mind, visit us or read our blog to see what Vidyo can do in making your video conferences truly satisfying business experiences.

In a rapidly advancing technological age in which we have invented glowing plants, machines that print food, and computer interfaces from the future, one would think that businesses everywhere would be using video conferencing as often as they use a copy machine.

But they haven't.

Oddly enough, people are reluctant about the technology. In his many years of telecommuting, one worker
observed how rare video conferencing had been used, and he lamented how
much more efficient and human his work experience could have been if
businesses were more open to video conferencing. He also noted that 2012
saw 27 million simultaneous video conferencing sessions on
Skype between personal, non-business users. The business world, he felt,
is far behind the rest of society.

A part of the problem is the proliferation of myths about video
conferencing. The following tall tales about the technology need to be
busted in the business community:

1. Videoconferencing is so complex that only a business with an IT staff can manage it.

That might have been true years ago, but not anymore. Recent products
have consolidated tasks and features into all-in-one systems that are
intuitive, user-friendly and do not require a genius to operate or set
up. The technology continues to advance, and every year brings a new
wave of products that become easier to manage. Some of the best
all-in-one systems are the HDTV products that combine everything --
including the computer technology -- into one thin, portable HDTV.

2. Videoconferencing costs too much.

The price gets lower every year. Companies can find high-quality
products that will outfit a room with video conferencing for less than a
grand. In addition, third-party companies
can host your telepresence for an affordable price, which eliminates
the need to purchase expensive in-house assets such as servers.

3. The new equipment has to match the company's old video equipment.

Companies who build conference technology understand that clients
don't want to spend loads of money replacing everything from the ground
up if they don't have to. That's why most newer video conferencing
systems are designed to fit right into older video components that might
already exist in your board room.

With each new year of advancement in conferencing technology, there
are fewer excuses to not move more communications into the video
conferencing arena. The value of real-time face-to-face connections will
quickly become apparent, especially after you see how affordable and
manageable the technology has become.

Learn more about our pricing for hosted telepresence. If your company is new to using this technology, start by enabling a select group of users at your organization. If successful, they will become an invaluable resource to you when introducing the technology to the whole company.